F.B.I. NEWS PAGE96

Hate CrimesThird Man Pleads GuiltyA Chico man admitted to participating in spray-painting anti-Semitic and neo-Nazi graffiti on the walls of a synagogue and anti-Christian graffiti on two churches. Details

Illegal Exports Iranian National Charged A citizen of Iran is accused of exporting specialized metals from the U.S. through companies in Turkey to Iran. Details

Information on David Durham has been added to the FBI website in the crime alerts section. He is wanted for the shooting of a police officer in Oregon.

Crime Alerts for Federal Bureau of Investigation. This information has recently been updated, and is now available.

The FBI is seeking assistance with locating David Anthony Durham who is alleged to have been involved in the shooting of a police officer following a traffic stop in Lincoln County, Oregon, on January 23, 2011.

Portland Most Wanted for Federal Bureau of Investigation. This information has recently been updated, and is now available.

Gregory J. Buchholz, 46, of Bridgewater, was sentenced in Bridgeport to 48 months of imprisonment, followed by three years of supervised release, for embezzling approximately $1.7 million from clients of his financial services business.

Orlando Johnson transported from Connecticut to New York City a Rolex wristwatch that he knew had been stolen. The watch, which had a retail value of $7,075, had been stolen from a jewelry store in Fairfield in early 2005.

Dr. Arun Sharma, of Kemah, Texas, was sentenced to 15 years in prison for engaging in a conspiracy with his wife, Dr. Kiran Sharma, to commit health care fraud and committing health care fraud over a 10-year-period.

Jorge Luis de la Fuente-Monton and Fernando Antonio Munoz-Martinez, both 19-year-old citizens of Mexico, pled guilty in McAllen, Texas in connection with an aggravated robbery in which they assaulted an off-duty Border Patrol agent, brandished a knife, and stole his vehicle.

Irvin Bitsilly, a73-year-old enrolled member of the Navajo Nation who resides in Tohatchi, New Mexico, was sentenced to five years in prison for sexually assaulting his stepdaughter and his step-granddaughter, who is allegedly the biological child of Bitsilly as a result of the assault of his stepdaughter.

Stock broker Gregg M. Berger, of New York, was indicted in Detroit, Michigan for his role in a wide-ranging fraud scheme to illegally "pump-and-dump" thinly traded Chinese and Israeli stocks by using spam e-mails that promoted the stocks to artificially inflate their prices. The scheme generated $30 million for Berger's co-conspirators and more than $600,000 in commissions for himself.

Colleen R. LaRose, aka "Jihad Jane," a U.S. citizen and former resident of Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, pled guilty to all counts of a superseding indictment charging her with conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists, conspiracy to kill in a foreign country, making false statements, and attempted identity theft.

Craig Sparks and Benjamin Michaud, both formerly of Worcester, Massachusetts, were each sentenced to more than 15 years in prison for the armed robbery of a Bank of America branch in Waltham, Massachusetts.

Milad Jafari, a citizen and resident of Iran, has been indicted for illegally exporting and attempting to export specialized metals from the United States through companies in Turkey to several entities in Iran, including some entities that have been sanctioned for involvement in ballistic missile activities.

Fugitive SoughtUp to $10,000 Reward Offered David Anthony Durham is wanted in connection with the shooting of Lincoln City Police Officer Steven Dodds. Details | Poster

Robert Oliver, of Canada, pled guilty in Buffalo, New York in connection with knowing that heroin was being sold at his place of employment, but rather than reporting the crime, he concealed the activity and allowed the drug sales to take place.

Forrest S. Twight, of Cedar Park, Texas, was indicted in Cleveland, Ohio in connection with allegedly making arrangements through the Internet and text messaging to travel to Ohio to meet a minor and transport the minor back to Twight's Texas residence, with the intent to engage in sexual activity with the minor.

Loan officer Scott Tyson and real estate agent Susan Levy, both of Tucson, Arizona, were indicted on charges of wire fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud in connection with their participation in a $1.2 million mortgage fraud conspiracy.

Richard W. Charette, of Las Vegas, Nevada, pled guilty to participating in a conspiracy to receive and disclose University Medical Center of Southern Nevada hospital patient records in order to solicit business and clients for personal injury attorneys.

Ngozi T. Pole, of Waldorf, Maryland, a former office manager for U.S. Senator Edward M. Kennedy, was convicted of five counts of wire fraud and one count of theft of government property in connection with using his position as a congressional staffer to steal more than $75,000 of government money.

Reginald A. Clark, of Washington, D.C., was convicted on federal charges stemming from the theft of nearly $220,000 from Hoya Federal Credit Union on the campus of Georgetown University, where he had been employed as an accountant.

Kickback SchemeOverland Park Man SentencedA former logistics manager admitted to taking kickbacks from freight carriers and has been ordered to pay $939,000 in restitution. Details

Wednesday, Feb. 2, 2011

The Wall Street banks were given briefings last month on the possible threats from al-Qaeda after published reports surfaced focusing on those businesses, said Jim Margolin, a spokesman for the New York office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. - Timothy A.Clary/AFP/Getty Images

Financial institutions in New York were told by the FBI that they face a potential terrorist threat from al-Qaeda, a spokesman for the bureau said.

The banks were given briefings last month on the possible threats from al-Qaeda after published reports surfaced focusing on those businesses, said Jim Margolin, a spokesman for the New York office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

“The threat information is that it’s not imminent and not specific,” Margolin said yesterday in a phone interview.

The FBI and members of the Joint Terrorism Task Force, which includes the New York Police Department, regularly give briefings to the public sector about terrorist threats, he said.

“In the nearly 10 years since 9/11, we give briefings as circumstances warrant,” Margolin said. “This threat was in the course of a periodic updates given to them in the evolving threat stream.”

In January, an editorial written by Anwar al-Awlaki was posted on the Internet magazine Inspire, published by al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, the Yemeni branch of the terrorist organization that took credit for Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

The Yemeni-American cleric supports violence against U.S. targets and encourages the targeting of major Western financial institutions under an editorial titled: “Is it halal to dispossess the wealth of the disbelievers in America and other Western Countries?”

Suggested Targets

“We therefore suggest that the following should be targeted: Government owned property, banks; global corporations,” he wrote. “Wealth belonging to disbelievers with known animosity towards Muslims.”

Al-Awlaki, who was born in the U.S., also has posted videos on the Internet justifying the killing of American civilians and urged Muslims in the U.S. Army to kill their fellow soldiers.

Both the U.S. government and its citizens should be targeted, he said.

“The reasoning behind comparing the booty to hunting and wood gathering is because the property which exists in the hands of the disbelievers is not considered to be rightfully theirs,” al-Awlaki said.

In October, Faisal Shahzad, who drove a bomb-laden vehicle into New York’s crowded Times Square in May, was sentenced to life in prison.

“The Koran gives us the right to defend, and that’s what I’m doing,” Shahzad told U.S. District Judge Miriam Cedarbaum in New York at his sentencing. “Brace yourself, because the war with Muslims has just begun. Consider me only a first droplet of the flood that will follow me.”

Printer Cartridges

U.S. authorities have been closely monitoring the use of mail and shipping as a potential method for terrorists attacks after two bombs were discovered in printer cartridges being shipped on U.S.-bound aircraft in October.

Investigators have been looking at whether the shipments were staged as rehearsals for a future attack, a U.S. official has said.

United Parcel Service Inc. said the FBI checked packages on three jets from Europe, while FedEx Corp. embargoed shipments from Yemen in October after a parcel from the country was seized by officials at its Dubai facility.

The attempted bombings seem to be the work of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, said John Brennan, President Barack Obama’s top counterterrorism adviser, in a November television interview.

The sophistication of the bombs “shows that it was an al- Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula effort,” Brennan said on ABC’s “This Week” program.

A spokesman for the New York Police Department, who didn’t give his name, declined to comment when asked about the FBI threat announcement yesterday. Ellen Davis, a spokeswoman for Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara, also declined to comment.

Robert Medearis, of Mission, South Dakota, was found guilty of using an axe to remove and destroy the windshield of a vehicle that had been involved in a crash in which a child was seriously injured. The windshield contained DNA evidence from a person in the vehicle who had struck and fractured the windshield in the crash.

Choctaw County, Mississippi Sheriff's Deputy Billy C. Scott, Jr. was charged in connection with allegedly ordering his police dog to attack a man without any legitimate law enforcement purpose, and with failing to keep the victim from harm and falsifying a report in order to cover up his misconduct.

Alan D. Zaleski, of Berlin, Connecticut, was sentenced to more than eight years in prison for illegally possessing machine guns and numerous other unregistered weapons, including a sawed-off shotgun, silencers, grenades, and improvised explosive devices.

Raymond Joseph Martin, an enrolled member of the Pueblo of Laguna, pled guilty in Albuquerque, New Mexico to abusive sexual contact, admitting that he touched his granddaughter's genitals, both directly and through her clothing, on several occasions when the child was 8 to 10 years old.

Former Philadelphia Police Inspector Carlo Daniel Castro and William Wong, both of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, were charged in a superseding indictment with additional offenses related to an extortion scheme carried out by the defendants.

Wayne Shirley, of Cedar Crest, New Mexico, an attorney who served as the chairman of the New Mexico Public Utilities Commission under Governor Gary Johnson, pled guilty to receipt of child pornography.

Kenneth A. Cole, of Washington, D.C., was sentenced to five years in prison on a perjury charge stemming from contradictory statements that he made while under oath about a drug trafficking conspiracy. Cole is already serving a 10.5 year-term after being previously convicted of participating in a drug trafficking conspiracy involving the M Street Crew, a racketeering and drug enterprise that had taken over the 18th and M Street neighborhood of Northeast Washington and turned it into their own private marketplace for drug trafficking during 2000 to 2004.

Eight members of a large scale drug trafficking and money laundering organization operating out of the McAllen, Texas, area from approximately 2004 through 2009 were sentenced to terms of imprisonment ranging from 180 to 360 months, without parole.

Osama Esam Saleem Ayesh, a resident of Jordan hired by the U.S. Department of State as a shipping and customs supervisor at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, was found guilty of stealing nearly $250,000 intended for the payment of shipping and customs services for the embassy.

The FBI released a statement in response to the report issued by Chairman Joseph Lieberman and Ranking Member Susan Collins, of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, on the events surrounding the shootings at Fort Hood on November 5, 2009.